tracks. The engineer pointed to an oil well
pumping in the middle of a cornfield. "Now
that's what I call farming."
The freight passed through Hays. From
the fort here Cody learned to scout with the
likes of Wild Bill Hickok. Nearby he once
sold illegal whiskey from a tent city called
Rome. He and a partner sold lots, dreaming
that Rome would become the depot town.
But Rome fell. Railroad men built Hays.
The train rattled on. Three miles to the
east at Big Creek a granite obelisk on a knoll
above a cottonwood grove reflected the set
ting sun. "That's a cemetery for six track
layers killed by Cheyennes in 1867," the
engineer said. He blew his whistle for a
crossing. It seemed more like a salute.
The Cheyennes in 1867 were enraged.
The track was cutting through their hunting
ground like a spear through the jugular.
Game was disappearing; trees were felled.
Three years earlier the Colorado militia
had massacred a Cheyenne village at Sand
Banner farm of Nebraska,
Scout's Rest was Cody's first
ranch, purchased near North
Plattewith profitsfrom his ear
liest show-business career-a
decade as an actor in touring
melodramas. In 1883 he orga
nized the Wild West, and three
years laterspent$3,500 to build
this Victorianranch house, now
a historical site. His sister Ju
lia, who chose the design, and
her husband managed Scout's
Rest, while Mrs. Cody lived in a
town mansion. Just about ev
eryonedropped inwhenever the
celebrity hit town. Before he
moved to Wyoming in 1902,
Cody supportednumerous local
improvements: a new Platte
River bridge, an irrigationca
nal, band uniforms, and an op
era house. He even convinced
Milan's La Scala opera to per
form in the little prairie town.
Creek, ignoring both U. S. and white flags
flown by peace leader Black Kettle. Now
young braves were fighting back. Their sud
den raids and fast retreats, their horse steal
ing and hostage taking had all the markings
of guerrilla warfare. The Army called them
hostiles.
After the Big Creek raid on August 1, a
Capt. George A. Armes set out from Fort
Hays with 34 men from the black Tenth
Cavalry. Cody wrote in his 1879 autobiogra
phy that he was the scout and made an enter
taining story of the pursuit, but he didn't
make himself a hero-he rarely did. The
Army, however, did not record his presence;
possibly he only heard about the episode.
But his telling does agree with the Army
account that the regiment survived being
surrounded by hundreds of Indians, only to
be laid low by cholera. Bill wondered which
was the greater danger, fighting Indians or
cholera: "The former was decidedly more in
viting." Western movies notwithstanding,